Less of the 请, less of the 谢谢, less of the 您贵姓 – please! A really ‘foreign’-sounding feature of English-speakers’ Chinese is the excessive politeness – it tends to be over-seasoned with ‘polite’ expressions like please and thank you. Whilst, to the English palate, this seasoning – whether used with friends, strangers, superiors, or even our own family – is pleasant to the taste, to the Chinese palate, it’s taste is somewhat vapid.
At first, it really can boggle many an English-speaker’s brain to know this, but it nonetheless is the case that in Chinese, using 谢谢 too much – especially when used with people you are close to does not in fact primarily convey your kindness and politeness, and the fact that you have manners. Rather, it CREATES SOCIAL DISTANCE! Say what?? It is true – when you say 谢谢 to someone you are quite friendly with, the ‘double 谢’ can imply that you are such strangers that you NEED to be that polite! The result is a slightly cold, distant feeling that comes with reverting to 客套话 (polite, formulaic expressions that show etiquette).
So how DO the Chinese speak to people they are close to? Well, a curious feature of Chinese banter between friends (I’m thinking of university-level female students here) is to be quite sharp and admonishing in their tone to one another – almost as if they were having a spat. Rather than offending one another, such sharpness in expressing themselves to one another shows intimacy i.e. we can only talk in such a way BECAUSE WE ARE CLOSE. Why might that be? Well, it could be because the lack of self-censorship shows the existence of a real bond. The alternative is that in being admonishing and ‘lecturing’ their friends when they make mistakes, there is a sense of parental or familial concern and protection that filters across.
Whilst it definitely takes a while to get your head around, just remember that over-politeness in Chinese can sometimes work against you and make you seem a little cold, distant or removed from the situation. This, of course, doesn’t mean that the Chinese NEVER say thank you ever – of course they do, it’s just that it’s not seen as 100% necessary, particularly between people of relatively equal status. In contrast, politeness in, say, England seems to involve forever ‘proving’ that you are not a rude person by speaking to others in a very particular way.
Interestingly, my own observation is that the use of this kind of ‘polite talk’ in China is becoming increasingly more common. My feeling is that this might have something to do with the wide exposure to English that many Chinese now receive at a very young age, as well as increasing interaction with Western countries (though feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here). I’ve also noticed that here in Melbourne (the one in Australia), Chinese people use a lot more of these polite phrases than I ever heard in China. I think to some degree, their own mother tongue gets influenced somewhat by the local English-speaking norms of being very overt with saying please, thank you and the like. Anyway, at the next opportunity, try to observe how native Chinese speakers interact with other Chinese speakers and how overt they are with their politeness.
中文秘诀 | The Secret of Chinese 